Staffer axed by Republican group over retracted copyright-reform memo. The Republican Study Committee, a caucus of Republicans in the House of Representatives, has told staffer Derek Khanna that he will be out of a job when Congress re-convenes in January. The incoming chairman of the RSC, Steve Scalise (R-LA) was approached by several Republican members of Congress who were upset about a memo Khanna wrote advocating reform of copyright law. They asked that Khanna not be retained, and Scalise agreed to their request. [Ars Technica]

Apparently the Republican faction of the Boot On Your Neck Party wants to be sure everyone understands that they’re just as much in the MAFIAA‘s pocket as the Democratic faction, and that voting Republican will certainly not change anything.

Given the recent fuss raised by corrupt politicians (SOPA and ACTA) and thugs enforcing the “laws” of the Evil Empire on its puppet states, its interesting to look at this seven part series on the history of copyright.

Today is SOPA blackout day, as many prominent websites protest a bill which, if passed, would allow the copyright industry to shut down any site that links to another site which contains links to what they consider copyright infringement, such as The Pirate Bay. There would still be ways around it, so I decided to exercise one of them today: I saved a backup copy of every post here, and inserted it into Freenet, where it is impossible for any government to remove it.

India’s copyright proposals are un-American (and that’s bad). India has long been one of the few countries on the US Special 301 “Priority Watch List” (PDF) as one of the world’s top offenders when it comes to piracy and copyright infringement. While the inclusion of Canada (yes, Canada) on this list has always seem patently bizarre to us, the case for India is more easily made.

Here’s how bad it is: “The piracy rate for music in the online space is estimated at 99%… India was among the top 10 countries in the world for illegal filesharing (P2P) activities… In one case, pamphlets were being distributed with the morning newspaper offering pirated software and referring readers to the website www.cd75dvd150.20m.com to place orders… It is estimated that India’s cable companies declare only 20% of their subscribers and that the piracy level in this market is at 80% with significant losses… The sale of high-risk trade books at traffic junctions in New Delhi appears to be a lesson; last year it was at epidemic proportions.” [Ars Technica]

Clearly the cultural approach to works of art is different in India than it is in the United States. In the United States, copyright law exists “to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.” What this means in concrete terms is that US copyright law is bought and paid for in its entirety by a very large corporation to ensure that a man who died in 1966 is motivated to continue working.

We can tell how successful those US copyright laws have been at fulfilling their stated purpose by the fact that India has been producing more films per year than the US since the 1970s.